Tag Archives: gifts

A skirt with a secret

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A beautiful, vintage checked skirt came in the mail. Thank you, Mo! It’s very cool.  It’s machine stitched with a ruffle at the lower edge and features a draw string waist, with no additional closure.

The lower edge is reinforced with a blue and white ticking. I love the two prints together. I also adore the hand darned repairs.

Finally, there is a secret pocket underneath the ruffle.

Since it’s too shallow for a gun and not secure enough for a set of keys, I’m guessing it was used for money. A tube of lipstick, perhaps? What do you think?

The sense of a life lived, with all its secrets and tribulations, duties and flourishes, comes through this garment. I’m imagining a small resourceful woman in command of her manse — a woman equipped with a fierce will and a few tricks up her sleeve (and money in her hem!)

I’m not sure I’ll be able to stand to cut it up. But, eventually? You know me — the scissors often win out.

tidying up and gratitude

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Sometimes expressing gratitude is a way to tidy up.  It needs doing. And the doing then clears the way for the next thing — surprisingly like the act of straightening the dining room up before a meal, although, since the giving-of-thanks has its own rewards, it is also like the meal! Here are two sources of my gratitude today.

First, as promised, more photos of the beautiful quilt by Saskia.
IMG_7571 IMG_7573I adore those red knots. I love the transparency of the piece and how the ‘back’ comes through to the ‘front’ — something Saskia has been playing with for quite some time. The moons and subtle gradations of color and beautifully placed stitches give off an air of mystery and order, both. Behind the quilt, just past our side fence, grows a majestic copper beech.
IMG_7789 IMG_7795I like how the blue trunk shape on the cloth echoes the real tree growing behind it.
IMG_7523This completely unprompted gift “Indian dyers” and their indigo pots was given to me by a well-traveled friend. It came from somewhere in the Gullah region of South Carolina (which, by the way, makes puzzle at the title ‘Indian’ — I would have assumed the figures to be slave descendants?). I absolutely love it! Thank you, Claire! I will be visiting the very region in less than a month. Cannot wait.